SPARTA, KY (93.7 The Fan) – Chip Ganassi Racing’s Kurt Busch picked up his first win of the season after beating his younger brother Kyle in Saturday night’s Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Quaker State 400 presented by Walmart at Kentucky Speedway.
“What a battle with my little brother, to race him side by side, to try to play the chess game at 180 miles an hour,” said Kurt Busch. “To do it in front of a huge crowd tonight, this was like that old-school Saturday night brawl, and I was happy to be part of it and come out on top.”
The win was an epic battle between the Busch brothers. It began when NASCAR had to go to overtime following Bubba Wallace’s spin off turn two.
Joey Logano lined up first taking the outside lane leaving Kyle Busch the inside lane. Erik Jones restarted third on the inside behind Kyle Busch with Kurt Busch in fourth on the outside on Row 2 behind Logano.
When the green flag dropped, Kyle Busch got the jump and got ahead of Logano who moved down to side-draft Busch, opening the door for Kurt Busch to move to the outside of Logano as the three cars headed into turn one.
Jones moved under Logano in turn 2 as Kyle Busch moved up to the middle of the track, but Kurt Busch was coming with momentum thanks to his teammate Kyle Larson staying behind him through 1 and 2 as Jones and the Busch brothers raced three-wide down the back stretch.
Kyle Busch sailed his M&M’s Camry into turn 3 but Kurt Busch never lifted off the gas of his Monster Energy Camaro and the brothers raced side-by-side through turn 4 and onto the frontstretch.
Kurt Busch beat Kyle to the stripe with the white flag waving signaling one-to-go. The pair made contact going into turn one with Kyle gaining a half car length lead in the middle of turn 1. The contact left Kurt with a tire rub as the pair exited turn 2 side-by-side and raced down the backstretch.
Kyle Busch dove to the low side of the track as they entered turn 3 and Kurt stayed on the high side. The pair made contact again in turn 4, and then again coming off turn 4 heading for the checkered flag where Kurt edged Kyle by .076-seconds.
“We're wide open through Turns 1 and 2, and we were trying to go wide open through 3 and 4, and it was a matter of me just staying as close as I could to his right rear quarterpanel because he was on my left rear down the straightaway, I had to be on his right rear through the corners,” explained Kurt Busch. “As we drove down into Turn 3 on the last lap, I just stared straight at his door, I could see the No. 18 to my left and I never lifted until I heard him lift, and then I'm like, wait a minute, I've got to still miss the wall. And he gave me just enough room, as a true racer would or as my little brother would. But I'm really proud of the way that we finished this race 1-2, put on one hell of a show, one of those old-school type races where it's two guys duking it out. Just happened to be brothers, different manufacturers.”
Kyle Busch, who’s never happy when he doesn’t win, took solace in putting on a great show for the fans.
“I'm glad it was a thriller,” said Kyle Busch. “Just unfortunately we were on the wrong end of the deal. But congratulations to Kurt and Chip and Monster and all the guys over there. It's obviously cool to put on great races and great finishes and been a part of a lot of them and not very many -- in fact none with my brother like that, so that was a first. You know, no hard feelings, and we move on.”
Jones finished third followed by Larson in the No. 42 Clover Chevrolet, giving team owner Chip Ganassi two cars in the top 4.
Kurt Busch said having Larson stay behind him following the restart was one of the keys to his victory.
“It's amazing what happened, for us to have that restart, to have Kyle Larson behind me in the sixth position, spotter said, ‘teammate is going to go with you’. I'm like, well, ‘is he really’? And he did, and he did a phenomenal job so that I didn't have to look in the mirror, and all I had to do was play offense out in front of me, and what a battle.”
The win locks Kurt Busch into the NASCAR Playoffs and Larson’s fourth place finish leaves him in 13th position, 38-points ahead of Erik Jones in 16th position. The top 16 in points qualify for the playoffs.
The battle for the Monster Energy Cup continues July 21stat New Hampshire Motor Speedway.